{"id":1633,"date":"2026-05-04T20:22:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T19:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/04\/met-museum-show-at-new-costume-institute-puts-fashion-in-same-spotlight-as-egyptian-artefacts-fashion\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T20:22:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T19:22:00","slug":"met-museum-show-at-new-costume-institute-puts-fashion-in-same-spotlight-as-egyptian-artefacts-fashion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/04\/met-museum-show-at-new-costume-institute-puts-fashion-in-same-spotlight-as-egyptian-artefacts-fashion\/","title":{"rendered":"Met Museum show at new Costume Institute puts fashion in same spotlight as Egyptian artefacts | Fashion"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

Speaking at the opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2019s Costume Institute spring exhibition in New York, Anna Wintour<\/a> described the first Monday in May as her \u201cfavourite day of the year, and also my most terrifying one\u201d.<\/p>\n

This particular Monday may be more high-stakes than previous years, with Monday night\u2019s Met Gala for the exhibition\u2019s launch mired in controversy<\/a>, owing to Jeff Bezos and Lauren S\u00e1nchez Bezos\u2019s sponsorship of the event. It is also the inaugural exhibition for the Costume Institute\u2019s new home: a 12,000 sq ft space, named the Cond\u00e9 M Nast Galleries, that puts the museum\u2019s fashion exhibitions in a considerably more high-profile spot, right off its Great Hall.<\/p>\n

Three times the size of the institute\u2019s previous basement home, the gallery acknowledges the popularity of fashion exhibitions, which are frequently among the Met\u2019s most visited shows, and puts them in the same crowd-pleasing category as ancient Egyptian artefacts.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>The Costume Institute now has the space to \u2018pedestalise\u2019 the fashion pieces on display. <\/span> Photograph: Roy Rochlin\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Titled Costume Art, the exhibition pairs 200 garments and accessories with 200 artworks from the Met\u2019s collection. The idea, said the lead curator, Andrew Bolton, is to invite us to \u201creconsider longstanding hierarchies\u201d and consider art in the context of the fashion pieces in the show, rather than the other way round. It was inspired by the idea that \u201cthe dressed body\u201d is one aspect that is present in the Met\u2019s enormous collection.<\/p>\n

All of that extra space gave Bolton the leeway to explore his subject in depth, which he did by grouping the show into 13 \u201cthematic body types\u201d, beginning with the human body undressed. The show opens with an area devoted to the Naked and Nude body, where a Walter van Beirendonck spandex top and leggings with trompe l\u2019oeil male musculature and genitalia is paired with a Marcantonio Raimondi engraving of Adam and Eve, and statues are placed next to draped, classically inspired gowns by contemporary designers Y\/Project and Di Petsa.<\/p>\n

The next hall is the showstopper, focusing on the kind of bodies, Bolton said, that have been undercelebrated in fashion and western culture. Among them, a selection titled the Abstracted Body features three Comme des Gar\u00e7ons dresses in which the shape of the body is distended and conceptualised into unexpected silhouettes, paired with curvaceous sculptures by Max Weber, Jean Arp and Henry Moore.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Art pieces depicting the naked and clothed body are paired with clothed mannequins. <\/span> Photograph: Timothy A Clary\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A section on the Corpulent Body features ensembles by Michaela Stark, the Australian designer whose corsets and bound garments deliberately accentuate bulges of fat and flesh, paired with a Cycladic marble female figure from 4500-4000 BCE. Another of Stark\u2019s works is paired with Niki de Saint Phalle\u2019s Nana and Serpent sculpture.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n
<\/figure>\n

Representations of the Disabled Body include a mannequin styled after the campaigner Sin\u00e9ad Burke, wearing a Burberry trenchcoat modified to fit her small stature by the photographer Tim Walker, including a crown made from the excess fabric chopped off the sleeve.<\/p>\n

All of the mannequins in this section of the show, designed to foreground diversity, are arranged on high podiums or, as Bolton put it, deliberately \u201cpedestalised\u201d. Seeing a true diversity of bodies in a fashion museum setting feels far more refreshing than it should \u2013 and so much more interesting.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Irises by Vincent van Gogh and Yves Saint Laurent. <\/span> Photograph: Timothy A Clary\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Though the exhibition features many straightforwardly beautiful works of art \u2013 an Yves Saint Laurent 1988 silk organza jacket decorated with a design of Van Gogh\u2019s Irises paired with the 1889 painting, for example \u2013 the overall emphasis of the show is of strangeness and surprise.<\/p>\n

Dresses with embroidered anatomical body parts and sculptures and garments resembling skeletons featured heavily in a section on the Mortal Body; in a section on the Aging Body a Batsheva jumper emblazoned with the word Hag beside The Old Duchess, a 1905 painting by George Luks; a Vetements hoodie declaring \u201cI\u2019m retired\u201d next to a Diane Arbus photograph of retirees; a Sarah Lucas sculpture next to a piece of wearable art made of what Bolton described as \u201cNora Batty-like stockings\u201d by the British designer Harry Pontefract.<\/p>\n

The show\u2019s press preview is also the precursor to Monday\u2019s Met Gala. S\u00e1nchez Bezos was there, wearing a shimmering bronze dress. In remarks that will not appeal to the protesters papering the city with posters urging for a boycott of the event, Wintour underlined the necessity of funding for art for a successful city, and described S\u00e1nchez Bezos as a \u201cforce for joy, a force for generosity\u201d. The Met Gala, she said, has a ripple effect across New York<\/a>, driving trade to many local businesses, including \u201cGod knows how many hairdressers\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speaking at the opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2019s Costume Institute spring exhibition in New York, Anna Wintour described the first Monday in May as her \u201cfavourite day of the year, and also my most terrifying one\u201d. This particular Monday may be more high-stakes than previous years, with Monday night\u2019s Met Gala for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/007a2f36713255fd2496223c7b880c94f01c77f2\/66_0_4915_3933\/master\/4915.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&precrop=40:21,offset-x50,offset-y0&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=c71573a4f4a5fb4141811dfdec09a84d","fifu_image_alt":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[3371,608,3370,1128,1170,955,1171,3332,194,2841],"class_list":["post-1633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-artefacts","tag-costume","tag-egyptian","tag-fashion","tag-institute","tag-met","tag-museum","tag-puts","tag-show","tag-spotlight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}